


Frozen and Cold

by MrowSaystheCat



Series: Silent Waters [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 04:55:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11373003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrowSaystheCat/pseuds/MrowSaystheCat
Summary: The end of the beginning.





	Frozen and Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this one actually came first - and I was just too shy to post it. So, going to reorder the fics with an edit; but here is the first part of Nate's story. I hope it isn't too... egh?

She had eyes like dark jade; deep and warm, always alive and bright with joy. He’d never met anyone so happy to just be alive, always afloat in the myriad simple pleasures of the every day. She once told him about how wonderful grass felt on her bare feet; how the smell of it, freshly cut, made her think of innocent days spent in her childhood. How the scent of a book, new or old, would get her imagination spinning; curiosity overwhelming her to see what lay in the pages between the covers. They used to lay together, on balmy summer nights, telling one another stories if they couldn’t sleep. He would stroke her cheek; admiring those lovely eyes, while she spoke of fantasies she’d never set to type. Magicians in far-flung societies that were a far cry from a lawyer and a veteran; but she never failed to make the characters so much like him and her. He couldn’t claim anything as fancy; not really. The only stories he knew were the ones he’d lived; mostly garnered while he was in service. Nate was always careful not to let the ones of wounded friends, brothers and sisters in arms, come in to the mix. And never death. No. Even if Nora knew how haunted he was by what he’d seen; he couldn’t share those with her, not after her tales of mages and princesses. Happy endings interwoven with breathtaking adventures. But then he would find her hand on his cheek; easing away a stray tear as she gently guided him to look at her. He would lose himself in those sparkling eyes. In the way a spray of freckles skipped along her cheeks and the bridge of her nose; things she hated, but he adored. She was the last strand of wonder, the last flickering light, in a world which had grown ever darker. And through her? Shaun came in to the world; another candle unthreatened by the breezes of the universe. Nate would always protect them both. That which warmed his heart, kept him human.

But then. Then, the day came where they ran to the vault. Nora in front of him, Shaun in her arms. Before them, the chain fence and uniforms. A mini-gun waiting to cut down any who ran afoul of those controlling the forming mob. Hoping to get in, hoping to be saved. They were let through, by some miracle – fresh on the list, just by the chance of him finally opening the door to that representative? He couldn’t think. Not of the how, but that the present allowed them enough time to make it to the platform. Standing at the center, right before the mushroom cloud rose and the world flared – too close, too bright for words. The force of the wind as it howled towards them; and then down in to the darkness.

Right in time.

And then time moved forward. On the breath of a lie, and upon wings of ice. Washing to chilled darkness one moment, and coming to take in shivering breaths the next. Only to see two lives stolen before him; his Nora, with her dark jade eyes, taken with a bullet. His Shaun, that last little candle, swept away in the arms of a woman not his mother. But alive; his cry rich in the air. The chilled darkness took him again, after the man with the garish scar had leered in at him… 

And when Nate was finally released from the pod-prison, he fell to the ground; choking on rampant pulse and shivering fear? His first thoughts were for Nora. He crawled until he could get to his feet, and the pod across the walk way felt like it was a thousand miles away. The minutes, as he slammed the button of her pod down; begging in heated breath for it to ‘come on, come on!’ felt like a thousand eternities wrapped in one. And there she was; still as stone and covered in crystalline frost. No smile to greet him, the shimmering light of her eyes washed in cold; frozen forever in the last horrified moments. Arms wide, lips parted in a silent cry for their baby. He was shaking; sorrow and rage combining within him as he touched her lips, her cheeks. Begging softly for her to come back to him, knowing that she was long past hearing his words. Long past being able to respond. 

Nate vowed his vengeance. Vowed that he would get their child back. And as the alarms urged him from her side, he made a silent promise to come back. To take her from this frozen tomb, and give her a place of her own; far away from the wreckage of their lives. Somehow, he would make it back to her, and he would pray over the mound of earth to shelter her body for the rest of time. Her spirit was flying free, but he knew; should he need her, she would be right by his side. A hand on his shoulder, a whisper in his ear. Forever his guiding light.

Through the maze of corridors; lined in skeletons and giant insects. Rising in to the world; seeing the ruins that the wrath of war had left in its wake – Nate wondered if they had, indeed, been the lucky ones.


End file.
